$1.9M Settlement, Jail Reforms in Sandra Bland Case

Attorneys for the Sandra Bland family say a $1.9 million settlement has been reached in their wrongful death suit against Texas authorities over her jailing, reports KTRK in Houston. The settlement with the Texas Department of Public Safety was capped by state statutes. The agency will pay $100,000. The Waller County jail will pay the bulk at $1.8 million.

As a condition of the settlement, says Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, the jail must provide emergency nurses for all shifts; use automated electronic sensors to ensure accurate and timely cell checks; and seek the passage of additional state funds for for jail intaking, inmate screening, training and additional jail support. Bland was stopped for failing to signal a lane change on July 10, 2015 in Waller County. She was in Texas from her home in Naperville, Il., to interview for a job at Prairie View A&M University. Bland graduated from the historically black college in 2009. The white state trooper who pulled her over planned on giving her a written warning, but changed his mind when Bland became uncooperative and argumentative. She was arrested and taken to the jail, about 60 miles northwest of Houston.

TCR AT A GLANCE

The award honors individuals in the media or media-related fields who have advanced national understanding on the 21st century challenges of criminal justice. It will be presented Feb 16, 2017 at a dinner at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

"Prescription opioid misuse and use of heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl are intertwined and deeply troubling problems," says director Tom Frieden of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The heroin-related death total topped the number of gun homicides by 10 cases.

Ronald Bert Smith Jr. was pronounced dead at 11:05 p.m. His attorneys asked the Supreme Court to hear the case because a judge had overridden the jury's recommendation that Smith get a life prison term. Four justices voted to delay the execution, but five votes were needed to do so.

President-elect visits Columbus to meet with first responders and victims in campus incident involving man who drove his car into a crowd and then attacked people with a butcher knife. Trump didn't discuss the assailant, whom he had called “a Somali refugee who should not have been in our country.”

The public is entitled to see virtually all Ohio police dash-cam recordings. the Ohio Supreme Court ruled 7-0, reports the Columbus Dispatch. The court rejected the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s attempt to keep all such recordings secret, even those pointed at an empty back seat or the median of an interstate highway. In its first […]